I have been a scientist in the field of the earth and environmental sciences for 33 years, specializing in geologic disposal of nuclear waste, energy-related research, planetary surface processes, subsurface transport and environmental clean-up of heavy metals. I am a Trustee of the Herbert M. Parker Foundation and consult on strategic planning for the DOE, EPA/State environmental agencies, and industry including companies that own nuclear, hydro, wind farms, large solar arrays, coal and gas plants. I also consult for EPA/State environmental agencies and industry on clean-up of heavy metals from soil and water. For over 20 years I have been a member of Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the NRDC, the Environmental Defense Fund and many others, as well as professional societies including the America Nuclear Society, the American Chemical Society and the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.

Different Recipes For Cooking Our Planet

Lately, we’ve been hearing that the Earth is not really heating since the mean global surface temperatures have been almost flat for the last 17 years (GW Not Happening; Nature Climate).

But there is no hiatus, no lull, and no reverse in global warming – the Earth is just warming in different ways. Indeed, there’s more than one way to heat a planet.

As a geologist, this is no surprise given the complexity of planetary heat transfer and other global processes (IPCC). Some areas get colder, some hotter, some drier, some even get more snow as the winters get warmer.

The average temperature of the lower atmosphere is what most non-scientists focus on, and it has only risen a little since the late 1990s. But the lower atmosphere is only one heat sink, and not a very effective one. Other large heat sinks include the ice sheets, soil moisture, the biosphere, the shallow oceans and the deep oceans. The latter two are not well-connected and mixing at medium depths has strong but delayed effects on sea surface temperatures and, thus, lower atmospheric temperatures.

Global mean temperature increases from 1979 to 2010 derived from two different studies (black and blue) compared to land areas experiencing peak high temperatures (red), i.e., days above the 95th percentile of typical temperature ranges. Despite a slight global plateau of surface temperatures over this period, Dr. Sonia Seneviratne and co-workers discovered a clear increase in land areas experiencing more than 50 days of severe heat. After Seneviratne et al., 2014.

These subtleties are critical and easy to misinterpret. Heating of the poles goes into raising ice temperatures, liberating very cold water, and is not reflected in an atmospheric temperature rise even though it is adding significantly to the heat budget of the Earth as a whole. Variations in seasonal sea ice does not indicate permanent ice sheet warming. Recently, these other heat sinks have soaked up the heat preferentially over the lower atmosphere, tricking those who would prefer to believe there is no warming.

Most climate scientists agree that this lower atmospheric global warming haitus is heavily affected by variations in shallow Pacific ocean cooling (SN), particularly changes in ocean circulations that have dragged warmer water deeper into the ocean (Scripps). These ocean effects have led directly to the Texas drought as well as the strange weather effects we’ve been experiencing here in the Pacific Northwest.

Models that include Pacific Ocean processes, such as POGA-H (Pacific Ocean Global Atmosphere), predict this apparent hiatus quite well. When the Pacific swings back to normal, this apparent hiatus will end, and global mean surface temperatures will resume climbing.

An indication of this complexity was recently demonstrated by Dr. Sonia Seneviratne of the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Zurich who showed that there has been a wave of heat spikes on land over the last 15 years even as the average global annual temperature has risen only slightly (Science News).

Seneviratne and co-workers looked at global weather records from 1979 to 2010 for areas experiencing peak high temperatures, i.e., days above the 95th percentile of typical temperature ranges over those 30 years (Nature Climate Journal). Despite a global plateau of surface temperatures over the same period, they saw a clear increase in land areas experiencing more than 50 days of severe heat (see figure above).

The authors state that “it would be erroneous to interpret the recent slowdown of the global annual mean temperature increase as a general slowdown of climate change.” In the United States alone, 2012 was the warmest year on record and devastating heat waves have been pounding us for the last several years.

The bottom line is – climate change continues unabated. We are still heating up the planet and will have to deal with the effects. So we should stop this back and forth about whether or not we’re warming. We are warming. You can debate about how much humans have caused or exacerbated this warming, what we can do about it, how we can prepare for it, how effective is decreasing fossil fuel, and a host of other issues that follow from the fact that we are warming.

According to many studies on the economics of climate change (2006 Stern Review; World Bank; National Bureau of Economic Research), the effect of even a moderate temperature rise of 2°C (~3.6°F) would cost the world several trillion dollars per year, regardless of whether the warming is natural or man-made. This is reason enough to get prepared.

These costs are tricky to calculate and fraught with uncertainties, but include lost crop yields, drowned coastal land, destroyed fisheries, extreme weather effects, more energy for residential cooling, more desalination for drinking water, even a significant loss of pollinators. The number and complexity of effects is stunning simply because it involves thewhole world.

To prevent the worst effects will cost the world about 2% of global GDP per year, or just over a trillion dollars, although that figure rises the longer we wait. Since our total energy costs are also about 2% of global GDP, this basically doubles our energy costs. By the same token, a trillion dollars is not a horrendous amount to invest to save the world as we know it.

Yes, it is important to understand why we are warming and how fast we are warming. Yes, it is crucial to understand if and how decreasing CO2 emissions would affect warming. Yes, it is valuable to know what economic effects will result from different levels of preparedness and what gives the biggest bang for the buck.

But there is no doubt that the Earth is warming.

Follow Jim on https://twitter.com/JimConca and see his and Dr. Wright’s book at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1419675885/sr=1-10/qid=1195953013/

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Climate change has been around more than four billion years. evidence indicates the earth has gone through many cycles of warming and cooling and likely will again. many factors contribute. If the earth was at an inflection point between heating and cooling, the few things we can measure with any certainty would not necessarily give us an unambiguous signal in direction of the change. We should take cognizance that we have many holes in every category of data and acknowledge that we have only been making direct measurements with any degree of comprehensiveness or even accuracy for a mere moment in time on the scale of geophysical processes. Extreme rhetoric and extreme actions distract from focus on actions that are practical and implementable, but, less appealing to those driven by dogma rather than reason and evidence.

I agree with your comments. Surely there is enough evidence of how fresh water from ice melt can have major effects on climate [ Agassiz and Missoula melt offs for example]. A major question I would like answered is “in previous ice ages do we know how far the ice retreated?” If there is a way of knowing then we can better predict how much fresh water will be returned to the sea.

Indeed, it’s all about rates of change, not absolute temp or CO2 concentrations. I don’t usually talk about CO2 anymore, there’s lots of reasons to get off of fossil fuel like direct pollution. One of my old blogs about warming has a better scale for the recent periods and shows huge changes over time. That’s a given, we need to be aware and ready, that’s all. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2013/07/28/who-cares-about-global-warming/

Using CO2 to promote renewables or nuclear is WRONG. CO2 is not causitive of “warming” even though there is no warming. Do yourself a favor and get OFF the CO2 bandwagon. Even Conca is off the CO2 bandwagon, it is intellectually dishonest.

Support your arguments with truth. I have done several thousand PV projects, not a dreamer talker type.

If this guy’s a geologist, I’m Hitler’s grandmother. An ACTUAL geologist would be aware of earth’s up-and-down temp cycles and know that we’re simply on another up cycle, just past the median point. Put another way, 500 years from today Greenland is going to be green again, and no amount of foot stomping or ‘green’ living is going to stop it.

Forbes headquarters should be burned to the ground for posting such tripe.